Throw away the Murdoch rags!

Support the paper that fights all cuts

Sarah Wrack, the Socialist sales organiser

News International heads' grovelling adverts apologising for "the wrongdoing that occurred" will have done little to redeem them in the eyes of people outraged by recent revelations about phone hacking.

They also stated that "our business was founded on the idea that a free and open press should be a positive force in society". What a joke! Murdoch has built his empire on anti-trade unionism and the quest for obscene profits.

And it's not just News International. Without the News of the World, what 'choice' faced readers last Sunday? The Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Times, the Daily Star - all packed with poisonous anti-working class rhetoric. The liberal press - the Observer and Independent on Sunday - do not provide an answer to Con-Dem lies either. The capitalist media ignores or misreports most things that do not support the interests of its big business owners.

But thousands of people read something different. The Socialist isn't held hostage to any billionaire backers. It's funded by working class people who buy, subscribe and donate. We report real news, how it affects ordinary people, and what they're doing about it.

Our reporters are working class people. In every issue we carry reports from workers and young people about campaigns they're organising and taking part in and about how the cuts are affecting their lives.

And a socialist newspaper doesn't just report, it can also help organise the fightback by supporting and drawing together all the different struggles going on.

As movements against austerity develop in Britain and internationally, the Socialist is not just writing about them, it's taking part by offering ideas of how we can win.

For the issue of the 30 June strikes, John McInally, vice-president of the PCS civil servants' union, wrote (in a personal capacity) about the strategy of escalating coordinated trade union action needed to defeat the government over pensions.

Anti-cuts movement

The last three months have seen a rapid development of a movement against the cuts with the 26 March demonstration, the public sector pension strikes and many local battles such as in Southampton. This has been reflected by a big increase in sales of the Socialist.

Hundreds of people bought a copy at their trade union conference where Socialist Party members took part and the Socialist helped them raise ideas of what the conferences needed to agree to present the most effective challenge to the Con-Dems.

As the living standards of working and middle class people are driven into the ground to pay for the bankers' crisis, more and more are questioning not just the 'need' for cuts but the capitalist system as a whole.

The Socialist argues for a different system - a socialist system. That is why it also carries articles explaining the ideas of socialist thinkers and revolutionary leaders Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky about how we can achieve such a change.

The bosses have their press. We - workers, trade unionists, young people, the unemployed - need ours too.

Subscribe to the Socialist today or ask for a few copies to sell to friends and workmates to help spread the word that there is an alternative to Murdoch and to capitalism.

Donate to the Socialist Party

Coronavirus crisis - Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.

When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our special coronavirus appeal.